The Coldest Blood

30

Dryden sat in the dark with Laura, the view beyond the picture window lit by a moon which had just risen from the sea. Ghostly white lines of surf ran into the beach below them, while further out a green light momentarily obscured a red one: ships eclipsing each other in the night. Despite the chalet’s double glazing Dryden could sense the coolness of the glass, a hint of the Arctic temperatures beyond.

Laura looked out, the hand-operated extension to the portable COMPASS machine lying unused in her hand. Dryden had hung a PEG-feed bag above the chair for her evening meal and he’d talked as the nutrient levels fell: a rambling dissertation on the mystery of Chips Connor which had elicited no response. He’d tried to hold the swimming brown eyes for a second: ‘If you’re unhappy here – tell me. We don’t have to do this.’ Nothing. They’d been at the Dolphin for twelve hours and she’d said nothing except the single word AIR.

Finally, he stood. ‘I’ll leave the lights off so you can see the view. There’s some videos up at reception. Art-club stuff as well as the usual – I’ll get something you’ll like. We can watch it later before bed. I’ll be ten…’ He flipped on the monitor by the bed, checked the PEG-feed, and double-locked the door on the way out.

On the step he looked east towards the dunes where he knew Humph was watching. He took a torch and flashed it three times, the immediate response a precise triple reflection. On the ghostly white beach he saw Boudicca, a sudden flash of jet-black shadow.

He looked up at the moon. A day had gone, but he felt further from the truth, unsure even if there was a truth. DI Reade’s arrival would destroy any chance he had of finding out what lay beneath the placid surface of the little community which was the Dolphin. It was up to him, but he felt he was failing, floundering amongst half-truths and lies.

A gravel path led inland, each pebble welded to its neighbour with a tiny coating of ice. Dryden picked his way past the camp’s new chalets, the deep sense of silence eerily complete. At reception the lights were on but the desk deserted, airport Muzak polluting the silence. He took a seat in the internet café and logged on, calling up from memory the website for Companies House. He was enough of a journalist to know that there were certain facts worth checking with official sources. He paid a £3 fee online by credit card and called up the last annual return for the Dolphin Holiday Spa.

‘Now that I didn’t expect,’ he said.

Two owners listed: Charles Frederick Connor – 50 per cent, Ruth Josephine Mary Connor – 50 per cent.

So much for Surfer Joe’s degree in business studies, thought Dryden. Three quid and he could have checked for himself. Either that or he had a decent reason to lie.

Dryden walked out through a carpeted lounge which smelt of synthetic lavender and followed the sign to the bar.

It was a shock, seeing it again, after thirty years: the polished dark wood panels, the art deco lights and wall fittings, the deep semicircular sofas, the polished parquet ballroom floor. He could still see his uncle and aunt sat on the high stools, as clear now in his memory as a family snapshot. It was an adult world, shadowy and darkened by the polished wood, infused with the aroma of beer, perfume and cigarettes, and splashed with evening sunlight. He’d never been inside, seeing it all from the garden beyond the French windows, with a glass of squash and a packet of crisps; a pre-dinner ritual which had briefly separated him from his newfound friends on the beach – a separation he had endured with grace, coveting the secret of the game to come.

In his memory something timeless played, but tonight the bar was silent. On one stool sat the only customer: Ruth Connor. Behind the bar was a man in a crisp white shirt, open at the neck, who had been leaning in close to share a private conversation and straightened as Dryden approached, rubbing his hands with a bar towel.

But Dryden had heard the last words he’d said, and they weren’t a whisper: ‘There’s no way he will – relax. OK – just relax.’ The tone had been angry, the emotion largely suppressed, the words spat out.

‘Mr Dryden,’ said Ruth Connor, recovering quickly. ‘Our very own roving reporter…’ She was still in the tracksuit, but the perfectly brushed blonde hair was unruffled by exercise, although Dryden noticed two blotches of red skin at her neck.

‘I’ve missed the rush then,’ said Dryden, looking round, wondering if Nabbs had told her he was from The Crow, or if she’d known all along.

‘Our estate agents are out for the night. Coach, into Lynn,’ she said.

‘Lets hope they get charged 5 per cent commission upfront,’ said Dryden. ‘And then find out they’ve been gazumped for a table.’

She smiled, the teeth revealed catching the light.

‘This is the old bar, isn’t it – from the camp? It’s nice – opulent. It’s got character.’

Ruth Connor laughed. ‘Yes. In other words the rest of the camp hasn’t. It’s the Floral Bar. It’s the only bit of the 1930s original buildings, along with the offices above. The rest is gone, history now.’

There was an awkward silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This is Russell. Russell Fleet. He runs all this with me. We’re just catching up – Russ has been on holiday. Now I can relax a bit. He makes great cocktails,’ she said, jiggling the glass. ‘If you’re nice to him he might even make one for you.’

They shook hands, the assistant manager’s flesh flabby and moist. Russell was a stone overweight but still powerful: middle aged, medium height, with the kind of limpid blue eyes usually reserved for people in recent receipt of a telegram from the queen. His skin was blotchy and overheated, discoloured by liver spots. His head was shaven in the modern style: a mistake as the stubble was prematurely grey and the cranium revealed was shallow, lacking the high dome which can make the skull noble. One eye was inflamed, an infection edging the eyelids in red.

Dryden knew a picture of health when he saw one.

‘How about a White Lady?’ asked Fleet.

Dryden nodded, wondering if he was missing a private joke. ‘Sure.’ He turned back to Ruth Connor as Fleet fussed with the cocktail shaker, brushing aside an offer of help from a young barman who had appeared from a back office.

‘You’ve been talking to William Nabbs,’ said Dryden.

‘Yes. He mentioned your – interests. Can I take it your visit is partly professional?… I’m sorry – perhaps I should have recognized the name. George Holme, Chips’ solicitor, sends us the cuttings. It’s been a great help, the support of the press. Thank you – I don’t get the chance to say that very often to a reporter in person. There was a story today, I think – in the Lynn News, but that wasn’t you?’

Dryden shook his head, impervious to the flattery. He’d written one story about Chips Connor and he doubted she’d even noticed his name. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I saw it too. So the appeal is off? The lawyers seem to think there’s no hope now.’

‘What do you think, Mr Dryden?’ said Fleet, setting the drinks on the bar. ‘Ruth’s lost hope too – it’s been cruel these last few weeks. She thought Chips was coming home.’

Dryden could sense the electricity in the air, a conversation hidden within another. He picked up the cocktail. ‘To estate agents – the only profession the British public distrusts more than journalism.’

Ruth Connor coloured slightly and took a gulp, glancing at a framed picture on the polished wooden panel beside the bar. Dryden stood, taking a closer look, letting the alcoholic thud of the cocktail take effect. It was Chips, a teenager, posing on the edge of the pool in trunks, the sunshine catching his natural summer tan.

Dryden turned. ‘Could have been a film star, eh?’

She nodded, turning her chin to catch the light on what Dryden imagined was her best side.

Dryden threw some money on the bar and bought a round, excluding Fleet, who had been cradling an orange juice anyway. Ruth Connor’s assistant manager moved off down the bar with a sheaf of paperwork once he’d conjured up two more of the lethal concoctions.

‘I visited him today,’ said Dryden, still watching for a reaction.

She didn’t miss a beat. ‘I know. We talk most evenings when I can’t get over. If this is a working holiday, Mr Dryden, there seems to be very little holiday involved.’

Dryden shrugged as if it were a decision made by others. ‘It’s handy – having the prison up the road,’ he said. ‘So – do you think he’s resigned to seeing out the sentence? What’s that – another five years? He seems like a model prisoner, but no remission?’

She siphoned up some more cocktail and Dryden thought there was suddenly something desperate about her, a tension which made her hand vibrate as she shuffled an errant hair from her cheek: ‘It’s been obvious to anyone who’s talked to Chips for the last thirty years that he’s an innocent man. But the judge stipulated that he should serve the sentence. And, frankly, he is not interested in going in front of a parole board. All we want is for the verdict to be quashed – which would be as much justice as he could hope for. After that, who knows what will happen? There’s money, he can choose.’

Dryden sipped his White Lady. ‘I’m sorry – can I ask a personal question?’

‘You can try.’ The tone was as hard as the old ballroom floor.

‘The newspaper reports that I’ve read said Chips had learning difficulties. Today – well, it’s clear that he has some problems. Were those problems as marked when you were married?’

She smiled the clinical smile again and retrieved a handbag from the bar. A Filofax, businesslike, held a snapshot wallet. Out of it she took a colour picture, a couple dancing, both faces together for the camera.

‘Our wedding day,’ she said. ‘August 31st, 1971. We were eighteen.’

Dryden recognized the face but everything else was different. She danced with arms thrown free at her side, her hair turning and rising, both feet just clear of the ballroom floor.

‘It’s here,’ he said, tapping his shoe on the wooden polished boards.

She nodded, reaching out to reclaim the image.

Fleet appeared with the third round of cocktails and she took an inch off the top. ‘I don’t think anyone approved – but Chips was good looking, great fun. He loved the camp, wanted to make a go of it too. We’d been at school together, so there was nothing of the whirlwind about it, quite the opposite. I was very lucky, actually, and very happy.

‘But there was an accident.’ She touched her forehead at the precise spot Dryden had noted the scar on her husband’s forehead. ‘He was diving – in the main pool. We had a high board then…’

Dryden nodded, remembering the falling bodies, the thrill of danger.

‘A child, just toddling, pushed one of the pedalos on the poolside into the water. It drifted under the board – Chips didn’t see it until he was falling. There was a lot of blood…’ Dryden thought how pale she always was. ‘The skull was split, there was some damage to the brain where it had been crushed up against the serrated bones behind the forehead – it’s a common feature of car-crash injuries. He came back quickly enough, that was Christmas ’73, and in many ways he seemed unhurt. The good humour was there, but there was something childlike after that… and there were childlike fears. He seemed to find people very frightening, especially close up, and he was genuinely terrified by emotions. There was a loss of something. He’d always been so good with people… but now, he was very cold. It was like he couldn’t imagine how anyone else felt.’

She lifted the crease of the perfectly laundered tracksuit bottoms.

‘There were panic attacks, crises of anxiety which just swept over him for no apparent reason. We’d find he was gone, and we’d search the camp – which was embarrassing in season – and then they’d find him, usually in the dunes, as far away from the crowds as he could get. It wasn’t just the people – it was the unpredictability, the not knowing if he’d have to meet someone new.

‘Anyway. We carried on, hoping it would get better. He still enjoyed the pool work – I think that was because he was in control, and he was with the children. And he was very good at some things – in fact he’d got better at some things. He had an amazing recall for names, which is a real plus in this work. And we put him in charge of the beach huts because it was mainly paperwork, and he was meticulous, really. But I didn’t know what to do… he was still very afraid of the world.’

‘He doesn’t want to leave prison,’ said Dryden, sensing at last some real emotion. ‘Why try to get him out?’

‘I’ve said. There’s a difference between innocence and freedom. I’d like to see the record straight – and so would he.’

‘Mrs Connor, if your husband didn’t kill Paul Gedney, who did? You must have thought about that.’

Outside they heard a coach returning, the babble of corporate voices heading towards them. She shuffled the glasses and collected the mats. Then she stopped and looked Dryden in the eyes. ‘If you’d met Paul, I don’t think you would have asked that question, Mr Dryden.’ She’d raised her voice, and Dryden detected the edge of suppressed anger beneath. ‘He collected enemies for a hobby, he had a level of natural arrogance which most people found repellent, and he’d do anything to get what he wanted. It’s a volatile cocktail,’ she said, draining her glass.

‘He’d fallen in with some dangerous people. It’s obvious that he ended up hiding in the marshes, in the Curlew. Clearly, someone found him.’ She stood. ‘I’m sorry. Russell will need a hand. This time of night we’re short of staff – and there’s some illness about, flu and suchlike. We’re a bit stretched.’

Dryden stood too. One more question. ‘I understand the Dolphin paid most of the cost of having the children from St Vincent’s for the holiday. Kids like Joe Petulengo and Declan McIlroy. That was very generous.’

‘Yes. It was. Anything else?’

‘Chips wrote this…’ said Dryden.

He put the piece of paper on the table, spreading it out.

I DIDN’T KNOW.

‘Didn’t know what, do you think?’

She shook her head, but she didn’t move. Dryden watched the estate agents heading in for nightcaps. ‘What do you think Chips would think if he walked through that door right now?’ asked Dryden.

It was a random question, but Dryden could see it had hit home. She couldn’t stop herself looking across the dance floor. ‘I think he’d be angry, angry that he’d lost thirty years of his life, and I think this room would remind him of that. Angry, Mr Dryden, very, very angry.’